The new North-west. [volume] (Deer Lodge, Mont.) 1869-1897, 1887-03-11

The first, perhaps the most interesting,
thing you see about the dead letter office is
the museum. Such a collection of curiosities
was perhaps never anywhere else gotten to-
gether Nothing SO much resembles it as the
exhibition of the handiworll of the inmates
of u lunatic asylum. Here are put in glass
cases thousand and ono things that cannot
be returned to their owners There are
dozen bottles of snakes preserved in alcohol,
the reptiles having been sent through the
mail alive. Lizards, horned toals, butter
flies, mice, and on one occasion even a live
canary, have found their way to tho dead
letter Office. Here are collections of all
sorts. There is q large case OF eoins in which
nearly every rare coin, botli ancient and
modern, lsfe#af te ssHaisEsaties i
The cowboy of the west could easily equip
himself out of this museum. There are re-
volvers of every pattern conceivable, bull
dogs, self cookers, six shooters, Colts, der
ringers, vest pockets, to say nothing of pocket
rifles and rifle canes. or hunting knives aud
daggers there are enough to stock frontier
outfitting store. There are tools, chisels.
hatchets, hammers, buck saws, planes. Even
grocer could make q pretty handsome start
with what is to be found in this museum. He
would have big boxes of raisirs, figs, jars of
honey, cans of baking powder and other
things too numerous to mention. The guam
tity of fancy work in the way Of things that
women crochet, knit, paint, embroiler, patch,
quilt, and in u hundred other ingenious ways
devise, would make q fortune for church
fair. Here are swords, flags, skulls, boxes of
cigars, packages of tobacco, gold rings, pins,
bracelets, steel traps, jack knives, bibles por-
traits, some of them hand painted and cent
ury old In short, all sorts and kinds of
things.
The main office is q huge room two stories
high, with an iron gallery, reached by spiral
stairs, running around its four Sides Here
sit at long tables the clerks who open and
classify the letters. Here tho aim of every
body is to clear up the days work and keep
even with the 10000 dead letters that are re-
ceived daily. Ten thousand letters every day
are opened and sent back to the senders
Last year in this room there was found in
dead letters over 81, 500 000 in cash, drafts,
checks and money orders, which butfor the
skill and honesty Of these clerks would hardly
have gone back to the owners through whose
carelessness it was lost. Tons upon tons of
parcels are opened hese daily. Just before
Christmas an immense amount of this kind
OF mail matter is received 1t comes mainly
from New York city, and consists of matter
sthI py aoreisners liVln3 Ill thls country 10
their friends in The old country. The senders
are usually ignorant people. who do not know
that the things they are sending hack TO tho
old home arc dutiablc in the country TO which
they arc going, and so their packages quickly
find their way to the dead letter Office. These
things are sorted out and packed away in the
long, dark storaSc rooms in the basement, all
properly classified and accounted for At ]
the end of the year they are sold at public
auction, and an account kept Of the proceeds
OF the sale. SO that il at any time the owners
can identify the package the government will
pay him exactly the sun, which the article
brought of the auction. Down in these
vaults there are stored away. ike Egyptian
tnunlnies awai.ing the last trump, over three